Running order of Workflows in one canvas

Question

Hi everyone,

Just have a small question regarding the order of workflows when they are in one canvas.

For example:

1. If I have 5 separate workflows (say they all writing to 5 different tables) in a canvas, how do they execute internally?

2. They all run parallelly or sequentially or like an interpreter or like compiler all once and write to different tables at the same time?

Please allow me to learn and understand this to upgrade my knowledge and skill. Thank you so much!

MarqueeCrew · Answer

@AKPWZ ,

Alteryx does have a "Runner" macro.  This macro can be embedded in a BATCH macro.  You can then create your 5 workflows and run them in sequence.

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Public-Community-Gallery/Runner/ta-p/889234

On Chaos Reigns Within (http://www.chaosreignswithin.com/2021/11/alteryx-runner-macro-check-out-alteryx.html) we've posted instructions on how to use the Alteryx macro to perform this magic.  We've even put a YouTube video together demonstrating how to create the macro.  https://youtu.be/mKpJjVYH-yU

If you just want to download the CReW macros, a List Runner or Conditional Runner can be used to not only run in sequence but also IFTTT the process.

http://www.chaosreignswithin.com/p/macros.html

Cheers,

Mark

Samantha_Jayne · Answer

Hi  @AKPWZ  the answer to your question does depend on the tools used but generally the way that the workflows are run, is through the tool ID Number. Alteryx will process them in the ID order unless it cannot process the data without data being inputted from a higher tool number until the end of the flow. Lots of people do try re-building the workflow in the order they want it to run to get around smaller issues, but one method I recommend can be seen in the youtube video link here: Alteryx Tool Order Processing This video is great if you want to have processes run one after another, rather than by tool number.

If you are struggling with outputting order for example into excel files conflicting I would refer to posts like this to support:

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Alteryx-Designer-Discussions/Execution-Sequence-of-Input-Tools/td-p/840386

or external blogs such as:

https://intersectionsandoverlaps.wordpress.com/2019/09/02/guide-to-outputting-to-multiple-excel-files-using-alteryx/

All the best on your learning journey.